Do Emotions Speak a Universal Language? English-Speaking Preschoolers' and Adults' Detection of Emotional Prosody in an Unfamiliar Language

Abstract

We examined English-speaking preschoolers' and adults' attention to emotional prosody in an unfamiliar language when asked to: (a) match emotional prosody with emotional faces; and (b) use emotional prosody to identify a speaker's intended referent. In Experiment 1, 4-year-olds (N = 36, M = 4.16 years; 18 females) and adults (N = 38, M = 21.18 years; 26 females) matched happy and sad Polish utterances to a corresponding emotional face, as evidenced through pointing decisions. In Experiment 2, adults (N = 36, M = 20.17 years; 31 females), but not 4-year-olds (N = 36, M = 4.11 years; 18 females), matched the same emotional utterances to objects whose properties signalled an association with happiness or sadness (e.g., intact vs. broken toy). These findings demonstrate that 4-year-olds and adults can recognise emotional prosody in an unfamiliar language, however, only adults are successful at extending this information to other kinds of emotion-relevant decisions.